Former New Order bassist Peter Hook has a pretty big set of brass balls. When the band decided to take a break after 1993’s Republic, various members did their own thing — singer Bernard Sumner continued his Electronic project with Johnny Marr, drummer Stephen Morris and keyboardist Gillian Gilbert experimented with more synthpop as the Other Two, and Hook … well, Hook just decided to keep New Order going with Monaco. If he couldn’t use the New Order name, he certainly could use the sound.

Hook’s distinctive high-note bass technique was joined by vocalist David Potts, who seemed to be selected purely for his ability to ape Bernard Sumner’s vocals with Rich Little precision (but accurately, unlike Rich Little — sorry, I couldn’t name another famous impressionist). Just take a listen to Monaco’s modern rock hit, “What Do You Want From Me?” (download) — if there wasn’t an MP3 tag on there identifying it otherwise, you’d swear it was New Order.

The cloning process continued on Music for Pleasure’s second single, “Shine” (download), which improbably manages to be even more New Order-ish than New Order. It’s like Hook took every New Order cliche and combined it in an evil laboratory experiment to create the perfect New Order song. It’s all here — the high-plucked bass, the oblique love-song lyrics, and that distinctive New Order-yet-not voice. Shameless, yes, but perhaps Hook had a lot more to do with New Order’s sound and success than we think? (more…)